


How to Disappear Completely (Without even Trying)

by karrenia_rune



Category: Duran Duran (Music Videos), Ordinary World (song or music video)
Genre: Alternate Realities, Gen, Inspired by Music, Missions Gone Wrong, Partners to Lovers, Quests, Space Colony ARK, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 04:10:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10801416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune





	How to Disappear Completely (Without even Trying)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Morbane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/gifts).



"Mr. Olson." Come in, and make yourself comfortable. This is an open session."

"It's Peter. Call me, Peter."

"Very, well, Peter. It is said that they also serve who remain behind and wait."

"I wonder if all the things I hear just serve to remind me that when it comes right down it, there's just me in the end," Peter muttered. 

"Do you still believe that she will be able to come back?" asked Doctor Sullivan. 

"Of course I do, Doctor Sullivan. Why else are we having these sessions?"

There followed a silence that neither seemed to willing to break.

At last Peter asked. "What do you want me to tell you, Doctor?"

"Anything you want, Mr. Olson. Sorry, Peter.

"No. Yes, Maybe. The hell, if I know, right now!" Peter almost could not help choke out the words. He stopped wondering if the space colony's resident therapist would push the pause button on the recording.

When he composed himself Peter realized that Dr. Sullivan had not done so.

In a calmer tone he continued.

"We'd been together, what, three, four years? We used to laugh about that because as close as we personally were; I think we had more or less come to accept that our personal orbits always seemed to be on something of a retrograde trajectory."

"Interesting," drawled Dr. Sullivan as she made a note on her electronic device resting on the table beside her elbow.

"Please, don't say 'interesting' like that," griped Peter.

"Why not?"

"It's annoying," replied Peter.

"Very well. Please continue."

"You know what Hannah is like?" Peter sighed and wiped his eyes with the back of his hands.

"Probably, but tell me, anyway."

Hannah always seemed possessed of a drive, hell, an insatiable need to be, to know, to do; hell, to be on the cutting edge of her chosen field in quantum physics."

When I first saw Hannah in that college lecture hall with her face lit up as from some inner fire I just knew on some visceral level that she was the One. Does that sound as if I'm waxing poetic?"

"Not at all. I think it sounds romantic," replied Dr. Sullivan. "In fact, Peter, I think you might be one of the few left, what used to be referred to in the colloquial language of Old Earth as a 'hopeless romantic."

For the first time since Peter Olson had been attending these semi-regular consueling sessions, he allowed himself to let go of the tightly constricted bands around his heart and mind and smiled. A small one, but a smile nonetheless.

She always wore her long brown hair tied up in a messy pony-tail, arms waving every which way in the fervor of her zeal for the subject matter."

"Did she ever discuss the project she'd been working on with your or any of your circle of friends?"

"The Quantum Mirror?"

Doctor Sullivan looked up and her calm exterior seemed to drop away for a few seconds but enough for Peter to notice it.

"Of course I've heard of it! It was all anyone could talk about. And it wasn't as if it was a big secret that you military types wanted to build some kind of space tunnel. A short-cut through the fabric of space."

"I suppose it should not come as a surprise to us, Peter The one quality that everyone we spoke to knew when it became confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that Doctor Hannah Renfred and her team had disappeared you would literally attempt to move heaven and earth to find her."

"I'm stubborn and I love her," Peter smiled and shrugged, then spread his hands out with the palms facing up and said, "What can I say?"

"Indeed, at this point, trying to keep news of their disappearance as well as what we still do not have a full understanding of what the Mirror can do."

"Like trying to catch white rabbits with gloves on in the middle of a snow-storm."

"You do have an interesting way of putting things, Peter. Sullivan shook her head and laughed.

"In all seriousness, Peter, you were considered a security threat."

"Little ole' me, a security threat?" Peter scoffed.

"Your early inquiries into the project, are what I'm referring to. The research and the power allocations in order to build it were highly top-secret.

"They always are. I guess like the man said, "in the midst of holy war and holy need, ours is just a little-sorrowed talk."

"I don't..." I'm not familiar with the reference," she stated and there was an awkward silence that neither the counselor or her patient was willing to break.

At last, Peter asked. "Hey, Sullivan, tell me something, you ever wonder what it's like on the "Other Side?" 

"The Other Side?"

"That's what I'm calling it. Once I became convinced that she hadn't left me, left behind whatever we had that resembled our Ordinary world and found out what the Mirror did...."

"What happened?"

"I started to wonder what it was like. You know, does the Other Side resemble ours? Does it have one moon, one sun or maybe it's a ring world; with one major planetary body with a bunch of moons orbiting it.

"Peter, if it's any consolation I can promise you that we're doing everything we can to find Doctor Renfred and her team."

"Do you think it's cold there? I'm not much of scientist...." 

"Don't sell yourself short, Mr. Olson."

"Okay, I understand the basics and have a vague idea of what this damn Mirror was supposed to do, but we both know when it comes to hard science I should stick to academics."

"If you say so," Sullivan replied. "In fact, if it helps you process what you're feeling and experiencing right now our lead search and retrieval teams are now receiving telemetry data from," she shrugged, "The Other Side," is as good a name as any."

"You think they're still alive?"

"Until we have evidence to the contrary, then, yes, yes, I do," Sullivan replied and smiled.

Peter nodded. "You know, it's strange what memories come back at these times, Doc, those ridiculous plastic pink glasses that Hannah wore when she was thirteen. She told me that the other kids used to give her a lot of grief about them."

"Do you still love her?"

"Of course I love her. She left an indelible impression on my heart." Peter started humming "Still can't escape the ghost of you." He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, running his hands through his mane of wild brown hair.

"Do you still believe that she'll come back?" Doctor Sullivan asked.

"This raw data you've been receiving, can you send a message to the mirror?"

"I suppose so. What message would you like us to send, Peter?

"Tell her, I love her. That's the most important thing. Tell her that she won't be forgotten, and not just to science, but as a person, and an individual. Promise me that you'll remember that, Doc."

Doctor Sullivan nodded and turned off the recorder. "I promise."

"Peter, I can say this we confidence, I think we've made a lot of progress here, today, probably more than you or I or anyone else expected to."

"That's awfully kind of you to say, Dr. Sullivan....

"Diana, It's Diana. Where was I going with this? Oh, yes, Peter, I wish that we could do more for you.

"I guess so. But Diana, Doc, I won't cry for yesterday. There's an Ordinary world out there that I somehow have to find. Any world is my world and we're all just living in it."

Diana felt as if she would choke up. She’d be informed that the man she would talk to tonight was, in a word, intense, but she had not expected this. “Peter, good luck. I mean it Seriously.”

“Thanks, Doc, I mean, Diana, sometimes through this whole mess, I’ve thought I was too much, too intense, too crazy, too stubborn for my own good. But, I just couldn’t let it go.”

“I hope this helped, I seriously, honestly, do,” Diana Sullivan stated emphatically.”

“It did,” Peter replied. “Can I go now?”

“Put with simplicity, Peter; yes, you can go.”

Peter stood up and grabbed his coat and hat and the cane that Hannah had given him on last New Year’s eve ball they attended together with its carved dragon-head. He paused half-way in and half-way out of the door. “Diana?”

“Yes”

“Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome.”


End file.
